A while back, Floonspower had a free swatch day (which I tweeted about!) & I eagerly sent off for one, because I have secret ambitions of one day designing my own fabric line like Anna Maria Horner or Heather Bailey. I didn’t have a lot of time to come up with anything new, so I repurposed the knitting needle kisses from the first KnitLove collection & ordered a half-drop 8″ x 8″ test swatch in (naturally) their organic knit cotton.

It arrived the other day and I’m so very impressed. The fabric is amazingly soft and stretchy, the colours are accurate, and the design is very well printed – crisp even when the swatch is stretched. The knit cotton is more cream than white, so I don’t know whether this would affect some designs, but for mine it looks warm and lovely. As you can see I already have some plain cream knit fabric, so I’m considering combining it with my swatch to make something small. Possibly handwarmers to take advantage of the stretch? What do you think? Any project ideas?

I’ve made my design available for you to order, if you like, but there are far more beautiful designs so I urge you to look around, or better, create your own. I’m still a newbie when it comes to this sort of knitting…

Have you read?

1. Sunday Morning Knitting Project

Ah, December. Post-autumn, pre-Christmas, prime Knitting Season. It comes after the shooting season, before the London season, and is by far the cosiest and the most fun. I’m exceedingly pleased with my WoollyWormhead Mystery Hat, now christened ‘Everglade’. The gales in Wales almost claimed it, but I ran after it into the wet black night and deftly snatched it back. I’ve lost too many hats on walks, dear knitters. First my pink & black Pirates hat, which I dropped on the beach at Ynyslas, then a navy blue Felicity which I lost on a woodland walk. The latter was particularly annoying, as it went so well with jeans. I refuse to relinquish any more knitted hats to the wilderness!

Anyway, I just got my very first printer, which I am very excited about. Up until now I’ve had to talk nicely to other people to be able to test the KnitLove collection, or scan various application forms. Now I get all the hassle & expense myself. Yay! The first thing I printed was the ‘Get Excited and Make Things’ poster. Actually, I usually reverse that order…

Make things: Mug Jumper.
Get Excited: Nearly 80 faves on Ravelry!

Knitting this won’t take you much longer than emptying the contents of your mug… unless you drink really quickly. Or knit really slowly. And for the moment the pattern only costs 90p. Go on, knit a few. :) What I loved about designing this was that I was able to just sit down with my mug of tea, and ‘unvent’ as I went along.* See what I mean?

I just followed the cables on my mug. I might still be struggling bending notes on the harmonica, but bending a cable is a piece o’ cake. I found this knitty mug at Superdrug a few weeks ago, by the way. It isn’t the most amazingly crafted piece of crockery, but it’s got cables & it’s pink & I love it.

More quick gift-knits will be coming soon. We all know it’s not “last-minute” until we’re in double figures at least. ;)

*I’d write about unventing cables, but Eunny did it much better, and about four years earlier.